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a018795
|
Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
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|
inspirational
|
Voltaire |
|
00a96ea
|
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
|
|
injustice
religion
atrocities
barbarity
skepticism
atheism
|
Voltaire |
|
c472423
|
Common sense is not so common.
|
|
common-sense
|
Voltaire |
|
59dd3e6
|
I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one's very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
b6ea1e5
|
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.
|
|
social-justice
religion
humor
prayers
ridicule
satire
social-life
|
Voltaire |
|
5f8457e
|
Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.
|
|
reading
books
pg-84
senator-pococurante
opinions
fame
taste
judgment
independent-thought
|
Voltaire |
|
ecf524b
|
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
|
|
heresy
freedom-of-thought
|
Voltaire |
|
71a1b2b
|
The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.
|
|
inspirational
|
Voltaire |
|
60de911
|
It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
|
|
verdict
reasonable-doubt
mercy
judgment
innocence
justice
guilt
|
Voltaire |
|
0a369a3
|
Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.
|
|
independence-of-thought
tolerance
voltaire
thinking
|
Voltaire |
|
a379082
|
Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.
|
|
reason
|
Voltaire |
|
dc78721
|
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
|
|
reformers
trailblazers
disregard
innovation
ignorance
persecution
|
Voltaire |
|
84177dc
|
Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst."
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
c1d09ac
|
You're a bitter man," said Candide. That's because I've lived," said Martin."
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
f94c0b2
|
Let us cultivate our garden.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
4e7aa8a
|
But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin."
|
|
world
|
Voltaire |
|
5ac220a
|
If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?
|
|
optimism
satire
|
Voltaire |
|
391e08f
|
I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?' That is a hard question,' said Candide.
|
|
voltaire
|
Voltaire |
|
2d5996f
|
Perfect is the enemy of good.
|
|
misattributed-to-jim-collins
inspirational
work-ethic
|
Voltaire |
|
5f1b356
|
Do you believe,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?' Do you believe,' said Martin, 'that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
870132d
|
Our labour preserves us from three great evils -- weariness, vice, and want.
|
|
want
greed
work
labor
weariness
need
vice
evil
|
Voltaire |
|
c1af06b
|
The best is the enemy of good.
|
|
good
greed
insatiability
desires
best
|
Voltaire |
|
cf952be
|
I read only to please myself, and enjoy only what suits my taste.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
a9f73fa
|
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
|
|
religion
idolatry
atheism
|
Voltaire |
|
657f1dc
|
What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?
|
|
murder
religion
fanaticism
|
Voltaire |
|
25e04f8
|
In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
f7142e1
|
When a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
666715d
|
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.)
|
|
inadequacy
works-backwards-too
|
voltaire |
|
850ae60
|
You are very harsh.' 'I have seen the world.
|
|
world
voltaire
|
Voltaire |
|
0ca2d7f
|
Come! you presence will either give me life or kill me with pleasure.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
f737c21
|
Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom.
|
|
meaning
life
misery
|
Voltaire |
|
bfd3a17
|
Let us work without reasoning,' said Martin; 'it is the only way to make life endurable.
|
|
work
|
Voltaire |
|
1b6170e
|
L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'etre.
|
|
philosophy
inspirational
|
Voltaire |
|
d389892
|
Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
a5ba3bf
|
But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything--in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.' 'You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.
|
|
voltaire
pleasure
|
Voltaire |
|
d7ebae8
|
And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
8a5a4d9
|
It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love.
|
|
love
pangloss
voltaire
|
Voltaire |
|
a95c595
|
What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide. "That is because I know what life is," said Martin."
|
|
satire
pessimism
|
Voltaire |
|
451291b
|
Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
1182c11
|
I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
a8fac8b
|
All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers.
|
|
freedom
|
Voltaire |
|
86591fc
|
Work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.
|
|
|
Voltaire |
|
79250c9
|
But he had been the victim of the world's most common crime--his youth had been kidnapped by a thing called time. It had likely also been raped, dismembered, and buried somewhere never to be seen again
|
|
time
youth
|
Aurelio Voltaire |
|
43a4669
|
A noise came from the phone that resembled the sound of a howler monkey having an ice cube inserted into its rectum
|
|
|
Aurelio Voltaire |